• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

Active Volcanoes Persisted On Far Side Of The Moon For 1.4 Billion Years

November 16, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

The Moon was volcanically active for a long time, but if we look at its mysterious far side, we now know exactly how long that was the case. Thanks to samples collected by the Chinese Chang’e-6 probe, researchers have been able to estimate that this volcanic period lasted for at least 1.4 billion years.

Chang’e-6 is the only spacecraft that has brought back material from the far side of the Moon. Just shy of two kilograms (4.4 pounds) of material was collected and yet it is enough to provide a wealth of new insights as to what goes on beyond the part of the Moon we can see. One fragment is estimated to be 4.2 billion years old. This is the oldest basalt sample from the Moon whose age has been precisely measured – but that’s not all they found.

Advertisement

They also found 107 other fragments of basalt that instead are “just” 2.8 billion years old. These were local basalts from an eruption that must have taken place at the Chang’e-6 landing site. There is no evidence of this eruption from near-side samples, making this a very important finding; the lander had previously found evidence of magmatic structures there.

The far side of the Moon is very different from the near side. The near side has the beautiful dark plains of basalts, the maria, or seas. The far side, however, is covered in craters. The crust thickness among the two hemispheres is also different, as is the concentration of certain elements, such as thorium. 

Why there is such a dichotomy is not clear, but the two papers describing these results are certain that the answer goes through understanding the volcanism on the far side.

“The samples returned by Chang’e-6 provide a best opportunity to investigate the lunar global dichotomy,” senior author Professor Yi-Gang Xu, from the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, said in a statement.

Advertisement

It is a sentiment shared by Professor Qiu-Li Li’s lab at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “Unraveling the volcanic history of the lunar farside is crucial for understanding the hemispheric dichotomy of the Moon,” said Li in a different statement.

The volcanic event of 2.8 billion years ago happened locally and it is consistent with the estimation of the age of the landing site of Chang’e-6, determined by statistically counting the craters in that region. The crate-counting chronology was established on the lunar near side; the fact that it also works on the far side is a very exciting result.

The Moon was likely already stuck with one face always towards Earth by the time the volcanism on the far side stopped.

The papers are published in the journal Science and Nature.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. China Evergrande shares slide 6% in early trade
  2. Indonesia’s new carbon tax signals higher power costs amid calls for clarity
  3. Hangxiety: Why Might You Feel Anxious After Drinking Alcohol?
  4. 380-Million-Year-Old Fanged Fish Found In One Of The World’s Oldest Lakes

Source Link: Active Volcanoes Persisted On Far Side Of The Moon For 1.4 Billion Years

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • This Is One Of The Only Groups Of People Outside Africa Who Had Virtually No Denisovan DNA
  • Puzzling “Transient” Lights In The 1950s Skies Focused Around Nuclear Testing Facilities, Intriguing Study Finds
  • The Maya Calendar Had A Way To Predict Eclipses That Was Accurate For Centuries
  • “Elon Owes You $100”: Musk’s SpaceX Settles Lawsuit With Cards Against Humanity
  • Eyes To The Skies! The Special Orionids Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight
  • Flying Spiders Are Real, But It’s Not As Frightening As It Sounds
  • It Can Rain Monkeys In Florida, And The Reason Why Dates Back To The 1930s
  • New “Ghost Particles” Data Hints At Why The Universe Is Not Made Of Antimatter
  • Human Hybrids May Have Been A Hidden Factor In The Extinction Of Neanderthals
  • Elon Musk’s Classified “Starshield” Satellites Are Emitting An Unusual Signal, Amateur Astronomer Finds
  • Getting To Uranus Could Take Half The Time With SpaceX’s Starship
  • Wind Phones: Does Talking To The Dead Really Help With Grief?
  • Fight, Flight, Or Fall Over: Meet The Myotonic Goat
  • JWST Confirms Day-Long Gamma-Ray Burst Was The Most Energetic Event Humanity Has Witnessed
  • These Birds Self-Cannibalize Their Own Organs To Complete Their Non-Stop 11,000-Kilometer Migration
  • “I’ve Never Seen This Happen Before”: Space Junk Found In Western Australian Desert Reported To Have Landed On Fire
  • Armadillo Girdled Lizards Turn Themselves Into An Ouroboros To Protect Their Underbelly
  • Opium Found In Rare Ancient Egyptian Vase Dedicated To “Great King” Xerxes
  • COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines Boosted Survival Almost 5-Fold In Some Cancer Patients
  • Sleuths Uncover Hidden Message In CIA’s Mysterious Kryptos Sculpture After 35 Years
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version